What is the point of using a source port other than the major ones?

[Flytrap]

The way i see it, i cant think of a reason to use ports like woof, nugget, doom retro, edge-classic, eternity (if you're not playing heartland), doom retro, crispy doom, any many others.

 

Major ports:

DSDA doom for purists

Helion for people who want outstanding performance

GZDoom for all the custom wads.

Chocolate for the ultra purists.

 

What selling points do the other minor source ports have, that these four dont fulfill?

[th3_Dru1d]

I dunno. I imagine there could be some really niche use cases regarding compatibility or highly specific personal preference (autism)

[Duffking]

Nugget is my favourite for the custom HUDs. I'd probably use DSDA for the same reason more but you can't turn off the colouring of the big_health etc elements in custom HUDs and it annoys me losing the colour schemes/themeing of WADs. Also works great on steam deck via luxtorpeda.

[esselfortium]

I like Eternity for its modern featureset for playing/modding/mapping; its powerful software renderer with portal support, multithreading (for high performance), and high precision (no sparklies); the fact that it accomplishes all of this while still remaining vanilla-compatible and still feeling like Doom; etc. I've been using it for a long time as my main port, and will probably continue to do so for a long time.

[Andromeda]

There is absolutely a reason to use other ports, otherwise everyone would simply use GZDoom since it runs 99.9% of what's out there. Personally I use Woof! the most since it's the only source port that supports recording vanilla/Boom/MBF/MBF21 demos besides DSDA-Doom, but with much less tweaking needed to get it setup like I want it.

[Gez]

Most of those ports have features that others don't have. It's not necessarily big features. It's not necessarily features that the majority finds desirable. It's not just a question of mapping features and supported standards. It can be questions of UI, input settings such as mouse movements, controller support, some miscellaneous tweaks e.g. Doom Retro comes with many subtle visual enhancements.

[ObviousAlexC]

I just use nugget because I like the viewbob settings.

[bofu]

Doom Retro feels like an alternative progression of Doom and looks and sounds really cool in a (suitably) retro way, yet keeps up with advancements in the Dehacked space. It’s also incredibly mod friendly in terms of its implementation.

[Jayextee]

What's the point in having a choice? Just do what everyone else is doing, jeez are you stupid or something.

[Stupid Bunny]

Crispy Doom is my default for anything limit-removing.  It allows freelook and disabling infinitely tall actors which is pretty key to my enjoyment.  It has fun QoL details like HUD coloring, colored blood, and built-in brightmaps for certain things.  It has a lot of options while still being simple enough to use and configure easily and play, by my reckoning, comfortably and faithfully.  In other words it does a combination of things that none of the ones you named can do right, and does so without extensive monkeying around in the settings.

[june gloom]

I would certainly use Eternal more if there were more gameplay mods for it.

[Endless]

Different strokes for different folks

 

The community is large and old enough that there's distinctive schools of thought about how they enjoy Doom the most. Each source port has different features and limitations that cater to different fields.

 

GZDoom is the most advanced one and the best one for mods, and it's also pretty easy to setup so people naturally start with that one most of the time. It is also the one with the most compatibility, it will basically play anything.

 

DSDA is the new go-to option for more pro players looking for speedrunning or challenging themselves.

 

Crispy and derivatives are for those looking for a more retro experience that feels close to the original without the limitations and bugs.

 

And Chocolate is for the hardcore retro enjoyers that want to experience Doom as it was in the 90s.

 

The more you play the more you'll start to branch out and look for different options. There's TONS of them and that's the great thing because you can experiment until you find your sweet spot. My go-to is Doom Retro because it achieves a great balance between retro goodness with modern QoL features.

[Donowa]

i mostly use nugget because it has an option to disable horizontal autoaim, which is a feature that is disappointingly uncommon in other source ports.
 

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Because WooF has a dog for its launcher icon. Plus, MBF21 support. ^w^

[Jayextee]

21 minutes ago, Endless said:

And Chocolate is for the hardcore retro enjoyers that want to experience Doom as it was in the 90s.

Or testing vanilla-targeting stuff, my primary use for it personally. Otherwise I use DSDA, not for speedrunning or anything but because prBOOM+ just doesn't cut it anymore.

[libre-lettuce-pie]

I've only tried source ports other than Chocolate Doom and ZDoom just to see if my WAD would work with them. Eternity Engine might have some cool features for modders, but it doesn’t support Strife dialogue, which makes it less useful for me. I mostly split my mods into story-focused with (ZDoom) and story-free (vanilla), so Eternity Engine doesn’t really fit into my setup nor do any of the various boom compatible ports.

Edited August 13 by Milkeno

[Maribo]

I wouldn't label DSDA-Doom as "for purists", it has a wealth of QOL additions included that would make an actual purist shriek in terror. It's just the current mainline continuation of PrBoom+, at its core.

 

Woof is a pretty lovely port and I've had lots of nice interactions with its developers. It has exceptional menu design and an A+ presentation, and it's currently the port I suggest to people new to Doom that are not looking for a port that does a specific thing (ie: play a bunch of GZDoom mods, play Heartland, etc). It also has the niche speedrunning use case of being the best demo-compatible port for co-op runs.

 

PsyDoom is also a pretty neat project that's worth a look if you're even moderately curious about PSX Doom. It's cool that it's reached such a mature state, especially after development was halted for a while due to work-related policies.

 

I also like Eternity for reasons previously mentioned, but it is a bit of a hard sell for people who glance at it and see the last stable release was over three years ago.

[GibFrag]

Different strokes for different folks. Some people don’t even use source ports at all.

[Trov]

I like Woof because it's good, I think it strikes a good balance between classic-ness and modding features, and I think it is a way less dense presentation of options than DSDA right now (though DSDA has cut down on that significantly as well vs PRBoom) and has better first-time-run defaults, such that I think its the most suitable for recommending to people new to Doom.

Edited August 13 by Trov

[elf-alchemist]

3 hours ago, Flytrap said:

The way i see it, i cant think of a reason to use ports like woof

This is only really my personal experience talking here:

Woof! is much more friendly and casually design than DSDA whilst achieving similar WAD compatibility for purists, it's UI is much nicer to navigate through, while still providing the complevels and features I want.
Vanilla/Boom/MBF/MBF21, is all that had ever mattered to me, not anything specific about each individual compatibility setting, UDMF also never meant anything, so having it is a whole "meh" from me.

Overall it's the more casual (if you will) experience compared to DSDA's absolute catering of purists, that doesn't sacrifice anything that matters about Doom.

[Murdoch]

Simple - personal preference. There's any number of different reasons why a person might prefer one port to another. It is impossible to completely quantify it.

 

[JackDBS]

4 hours ago, esselfortium said:

I like Eternity for its modern featureset for playing/modding/mapping; its powerful software renderer with portal support, multithreading (for high performance), and high precision (no sparklies); the fact that it accomplishes all of this while still remaining vanilla-compatible and still feeling like Doom; etc. I've been using it for a long time as my main port, and will probably continue to do so for a long time.

Sadly there’s like 1 good map set for it and that’s it… unless Vaporware gets resurrected.

[esselfortium]

Just now, JackDBS said:

Sadly there’s like 1 good map set for it and that’s it… unless Vaporware gets resurrected.

True as far as dedicated mapsets go, but it plays just about anything else that doesn't specifically require GZDoom.

[deathz0r]

Wake me up when I can use my CGA/monochrome video cards with DSDA-Doom - until then, FastDoom does a fantastic job at that. Similar rules apply to Doom8088 and RealDOOM and seeing them run on 16-bit x86 CPUs that Doom never supported.

 

 

[Bald Cyberdemon]

Many other ports have plenty of options that set themselves apart, some that GZDoom still doesn't have built-in like DSDA-Doom's rewind system or Crispy Doom's fullscreen hud. But for GZDoom's fans that doesn't matter since you can just install a mod that does whatever Quality of Life improvement you need or want

But what GZDoom can't quite seem to ever get a patch for is the certian look and feel that Doom's got. GZDoom just "feels" wrong to some people no matter what they do to it and it can be a massive undertaking to make it "look" like Doom without all the weirdness of it's default look. there are options for it sure but there are so many mods for it that expect you to play with GZDoom's dynamic lighting system and fog rendering on!

But that classic look and feel is exactly what ports like DSDA-Doom, Woof, Nugget, Crispy, International, Retro and Odamex shine in supporting! sure these ports don't have any fancy options for decorate or zscript, but those sorts of mods are the exact thing that people who like these ports want to get away from, and they each have their own suite of QoL options that no DeHackEd derivative could possibly be able to replicate, and those options might lead one to preffer the other; it's a matter of taste by that point

[lumely]

There's only one two dog-themed ports and only one of them has randomly mirrored corpses

Edited August 14 by lumely

[bobbie424242]

I tried most of them and always get back to GZDoom.
In particular for its performant high resolution hardware rendering (if you want to render at native 4K, you can) with flawless freelook, excellent input handling.

It can do anything and has zillions options, which for me I see as a plus, especially since you can search its settings.

From time to time I check other ports and they all have something unique going for them. But for my usage, GZDoom is superior,

including to the Kex remaster (which for example does not support soundfonts nor freelook, is limited in rendering resolution, has questionable input handling).

[costadevale]

I forgot what the original message said.

Edited October 10 by costadevale

[CacoKnight]

Cause it's fun :) I keep a main one (DSDA) and all the other' settings archived but I load all of them every month again.. just cause it's fun.

 

Edited August 18 by CacoKnight

[Scorcher]

Woof has much better mouse movement than DSDA, and it's overall a lot more minimalist and polished which I prefer.